Galerie Michael Janssen is pleased to announce the exhibition Real Painting (for Aunt Cora) with a series of new works by American artists Meg Cranston and John Baldessari. Following the exhibition Keep it Simple. Keep it Fresh. at Michael Janssen Singapore in January 2013, Meg Cranston and John Baldessari collaborated in this new series to create paintings Baldessari formerly deemed impossible.

The text used in the paintings comes from a text written by Baldessari in 1961 to his Aunt Cora. It is an apology for not making the type of paintings his aunt would enjoy. In it, Baldessari states, he would like to make a painting of pink clouds, sage brush, washing on line, a bullfighter, sand dunes, a red farm house, a lady in gypsy costume, ducks by an old well, oaken buckets, a sad doggie, an eucalyptus tree with leaves that look real and highlights on raven black hair. But, he said simply, "I can't".

The paintings have monochromatic backgrounds with gray text. The text is in Arial italic type hand painted. Meg Cranston determined the colors for the series drawing on her most recent work that reinvigorates color theory and investigates the business of color forecasting. She borrowed the colors determined by the Pantone Corporation for the women's fashion 2013 collections. “I have always been interested in why some colors seem to dominate at certain times. I have learned that the reason is that they are largely programmed – determined, if you will, by organized forces, namely the Pantone Corporation. Pantone releases a color forecast every season that most manufacturers follow to determine the colors of their products. I used the same colors because I wanted the paintings to be realistic – to reflect current conditions”, says Cranston.

Collaboration itself is a way for the two artists to achieve new solutions. For the exhibition they allowed the planes of text and color to work simultaneously in order to achieve a new and unanticipated resonance and profundity. The idea behind it was to use a 40-year-old text and update it by blending it within the context of color trends. “John and I are similar in the sense that we both like to work from a simple, almost neutral plan in the hopes of generating unexpected results. We both like to find ways to get beyond our own preferences and tastes so that we can generate something that we cannot anticipate. Paradoxically, for both of us, the lesson seems to be – the more neutral the plan the more surprising the result”, Cranston explains. Baldessari supplied the text.

In her practice Cranston investigates the intersections between individual and shared experience and how imagery and objects acquire meaning in our culture. While oftentimes taking personal attributes or historical events as a jumping-off point, her work is ultimately concerned with the formal language of art and the role the artist plays in helping us see the world in new ways.

Since the 1960’s, the works of Baldessari have developed into one of the most pioneering oeuvres of contemporary art. By means of productive gaps between image and word, he focuses on the relationship between language and power. Visual jokes and plays on words are the means by which he disrupts the strict classification of sense and nonsense and sets in motion processes of critical thought with regard to society.